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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Trump Shifting on Immigration; Trump Versus Clinton; Central Italy Earthquake; Ryan Lochte Charged in Brazil. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired August 26, 2016 - 04:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[04:00:15] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, can you identify Donald Trump's immigration plan? Can he? An exclusive interview with CNN that turns everything he has been saying for the last week completely upside down.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And Hillary Clinton hitting Trump hard while he doubles down calling her a bigot. You have to see their harshest attacks yet.

Good morning and welcome to EARLY START this Friday morning. I'm Christine Romans.

BERMAN: I'm John Berman. It is Friday, August 26. It's 4:00 a.m. in the East, which is early if you were up late at a concert last night.

ROMANS: It was worth it.

BERMAN: Overnight, everything changed when it comes to Donald's immigration plan or change back or didn't. At this point, it's difficult to tell. But it all played out in an exclusive interview with CNN.

The question is, does Donald Trump still believe that all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States need to go, by force if necessary? Until last week, he said yes. But then he seemed to say no, some could say, a softening, they called it.

But now in an interview with Anderson Cooper, Donald Trump is back to saying undocumented immigrants will have no path to legal status unless they leave first. On top of all of this was a remarkable three-hour stretch of the campaign when the candidates were arguing who was the bigger bigot, explosive language rarely heard on the campaign trail.

CNN's Jason Carroll has it all for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christine, John, the Trump campaign trying to sort through the muddled message on immigration. The Trump campaign has been very specific saying that Trump has been consistent when it comes to his point of view, saying that he always said no path to citizenship. No amnesty. But what is clear is that the message is unclear and the only one who

can clear it up is Donald Trump. Listen to how he tried to clear up the message last night with Anderson Cooper.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: If they haven't committed a crime, is there a path to citizenship?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: No, there is not a path -- there is no path to legalization, unless people leave the country -- well, they come back in, if they come back in, then they can start paying taxes. There is no path to legalization unless they leave the country and come back.

CARROLL: So, that's what he told CNN's Anderson Cooper, but he's also made other conflicting statements in other interviews on the subject of immigration.

TRUMP: They'll pay back taxes. They have to pay taxes. There's no amnesty, as such. There's no amnesty.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS: Right.

TRUMP: But we work with them.

Now, OK, when I look at it and everybody agrees we get the bad ones out. When I go through and meet thousands of people on the subject, and I've had very strong people come up to me. Really great, great people come up to me. They said, Mr. Trump, I love you. But to take a person that's been here for 15 or 20 years and throw them and the family out, it's so tough, Mr. Trump. I've had it all the time. It's a very, very hard thing.

You're going to have to send people out.

I would get people out and have an expedited way of getting them back into the country so they can be legal.

They've got to go out.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: But how do you do it in a practical way? You really think --

TRUMP: They've got to leave.

You're going to have a deportation force.

CARROLL: I spoken to a number of Trump supporters who said if Trump softens his position on immigration, Trump is going to end up losing their votes. One supporter in particular told me that one of the reasons why he likes Donald Trump so much is because he is plain spoken and clearly this is a subject where he is not as clear as he needs to be.

Once again, the only one who can ultimately clear this up is Donald Trump. The campaign hoping will finally be able to do that when he delivers his policy speech on immigration next Wednesday in Phoenix -- Christine, John.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Jason, thanks.

You know, Trump's big shift on immigration is drawing fire from Jeb Bush, who Trump beat for the Republican nomination while attacking Bush's stance on that very same subject. Some of the positions Trump took this week echoed those he mocked Bush for during the primary. One example, back when Trump was taking a hard line in deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, Bush advocated letting some stay as long as they meet a long list of criteria.

Now in a new interview, Bush says this looks like it is all a game to Donald Trump.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

JEB BUSH (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I can only say that whatever his views are this morning, they may change and they were different than last night and they'll be different from tomorrow. So, I can't comment on his views because his views are -- they seem to be ever changing depending on what crowd he's in front of.

[04:05:08] He sounds like a typical politician, by the way, where you get in front of one crowd and say one thing and then say something else to another crowd that may want to hear a different view. All the things that Donald Trump railed against, he seems to be morphing into -- it's kind of disturbing.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BERMAN: As we're saying, after Jeb Bush gave that interview, Trump did change his position again, he went back to saying all 11 million undocumented immigrants had to leave the country before they came back. So, Jeb Bush in the sense was right, right there.

Now, on top of everything having to do with immigration, there is also the battle over bigotry. Hillary Clinton delivering a blistering speech in Nevada, laying out what she sees as Donald Trump's connection with racist speech action policy. But in the interview with Anderson Cooper, Donald Trump basically said, "I know you are, but what am I?" Hillary Clinton is a bigot, he says.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: You called last night Hillary Clinton a bigot. Previously, you called her policies bigoted. You directly called her a bigot.

TRUMP: She is a bigot, because when you look at what's happening to the inner cities and you look at what's happening to African-Americans and Hispanics in this country where she talks all of the time, she's talking -- look at the vets, where she said the vets are being treated essentially just fine, that it's over exaggerated what's happening to the vets not so long ago.

COOPER: How is she bigoted? Bigoted is having hatred toward a particular group.

TRUMP: She's selling them down the tubes, because she's not doing anything for those communities. She talks a good game.

COOPER: So she has hatred or dislike of people?

TRUMP: Her policies are bigoted are bigoted -- her policies are bigoted because she knows they're not going to work.

COOPER: But you're saying she's personally bigoted.

TRUMP: She is. Of course, she is. Her policies and she comes up with the policies, and others that believe like she does also, like she came out with policies over the years. This is over the years, a long time.

She's totally bigoted. There's no question about that.

Look at what --

COOPER: But it does imply that she doesn't -- she has antipathy, she has hatred toward --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I think she -- I think she is extremely, extremely bad for African-Americans. I think she's been extremely bad for Hispanics. You look at what's happened with her policies and the policies of President Obama and others. Look at the poverty, look at the rise in poverty and look at the rise in violence.

COOPER: But hatred is at the core of that or dislike of African- Americans?

TRUMP: Well -- or maybe she's lazy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: So that was Trump holding the line on his attack against Hillary Clinton as bigoted. But she is lashing back in kind. At a rally in Nevada, Clinton accused Trump of racism and argued that she has handed the Republican Party over to a paranoid fringe element.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny is with the Clinton. He's got more for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, Hillary Clinton has delivered a lot of speeches about Trump, but here has never been any quite like the one she gave Thursday here in Reno. She questioned Donald Trump's connection to the alt-right movement, that is this growing movement on the Internet largely, white supremacist and others. She says it is a divisive, dangerous radical movement, and it's unprecedented for a presidential candidate like Donald Trump to be involved with.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Now, of course, there's always been a paranoid fringe in our politics, a lot of it rising from racial resentment. But it's never had the nominee of a major party stoking it, encouraging it and giving it a national mega phone until now.

ZELENY: Now, during her speech, she cited specific examples from Bob Dole during his 1996 convention when he said racists should leave the party. She talked about George W. Bush, who embraced Muslim after 9/11. She even talked about John McCain who criticized those who question President Obama's faith back in 2008.

She said that Donald Trump simply is a different kind of Republican. She said this is a different type of conservatism. She called it dangerous. And she asked Republicans to look inside themselves and join her campaign. The question, of course, is she a credible messenger to them? Will they actually follow her lead? John and Christine?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: All right. Jeff Zeleny for us.

Now, a new Hillary Clinton campaign video is also accusing Donald Trump of racism, trying to connect Donald Trump to the Ku Klux Klan and charging him with being slow to disavow the support of white supremacist, including former KKK leader David Duke. In a tweet, Trump responded saying of Hillary Clinton, she should be ashamed of herself.

And late last night, he rejected the support of racist voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Do you want white supremacists to vote for you?

TRUMP: No, I don't at all, not at all. And I will tell you, this is not about hate. This is about love. We love our country. We want our country to come back. We want our country to be strong again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Other news, a federal judge set a deadline for the State Department to deliver some of Hillary Clinton's e-mails uncovered by the FBI with the clock ticking toward Election Day in November. The State Department must hand the e-mails over to the conservative legal group Judicial Watch by September 13th. The order is limited to documents related to the Benghazi attacks.

[05:10:02ROMANS: All right. WWJD. What will Janet do? Wall Street and global markets waiting on words from one woman, one woman, Fed Reserve Chair Janet Yellen speaking this morning at an economic symposium in Wyoming. Investors will parse every word for clues of when to expect to see how strong the U.S. when is. Other members of the Fed spoken in favor of a hike sooner rather than later. Why? Strong labor market, rosy economic signals, strong housing

market. And while experts say Yellen is unlikely to indicate a hike next month, a recent survey of financial experts say the group found 85 percent expect a hike this year. The Fed left the rates steady after boosting them in December for the first time in nearly a decade.

U.S. stocks fell yesterday. Why? In anticipation of what Janet Yellen will say. Global markets are lower. Futures are flat. It all depends on her.

BERMAN: Not much pressure. It all depends on her.

All right. Ten minutes after the hour right now.

At least 267 people dead in the earthquake in Italy. There are aftershocks this morning that are just causing such problems with recovery efforts. You can see some of the pictures there of the destruction. We will have the very latest, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:15:25] BERMAN: This morning, aftershocks are hampering search efforts following the devastating earthquake in the mountains of central Italy this week. At least 267 people have died now. Emergency crews are racing against the clock trying to find survivors in the rubble there.

A state of emergency is now in effect in all of the areas affected.

We want to bring in CNN contributor Barbie Nadeau who is there for us. She is in Salletta, Italy.

Barbie, what are you seeing?

BARBIE NADEAU, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, right now, look at the scene behind me. This is what we are dealing with now, the aftermath of this devastating earthquake. What's hampering the efforts to clean up the mess and to make sure they have all of the bodies out is the fact that there are so many aftershocks.

Since midnight last night, there have been 57. One was 4.8 on the Richter scale. We heard it and felt it because buildings started crumbling down. There have been 928 aftershocks since the earthquake started. Every time there's an aftershock, the rescue workers search through rubble like this have to run for safety. We've seen it time and time again.

Those sorts of things are hampering the speed at which the operation is going. But what we see here this morning is so much infrastructure in place. We are seeing over 6,000 people here trying to help the survivors and victims who lost family members.

One thing, though, as we interview people who lost everything, we find maybe not everyone lost a relative, but everyone lost someone they knew. This was a tight-knit community, John, and everybody knew someone that's no longer here with us. BERMAN: It is important to know that, that everyone there is connected to the disaster in some way and those aftershocks can be so terrifying.

Barbie Nadeau, thanks so much.

ROMANS: All right. Authorities say a major heroine seizure in New York could have a substantial impact on opioid overdoses and deaths in the U.S. Officials say that more than 65 pounds of heroin, 65 pounds was transported from Mexico across the country, to suburban New York City where it was seized this week. Prosecutors arrested two drug traffickers and crippled a sophisticated well-run operation. They say the amount of drugs seized could have filled three quarters of a million individual doses.

BERMAN: Wow.

All right. Authorities are investigating the deaths of two nuns in rural Mississippi. This is such an awful story. The victims, Sisters Margaret Held and Paula Merrill both 68 years old, were killed in their home. The medical examiner said they were stabbed and there was evidence of a break-in. Police found their abandoned a short distance away. The two nuns were in a medical clinic that provided free treatment for the poor.

ROMANS: At his own request, a California judge is being taken off criminal cases. Judge Aaron Persky was harshly criticized for sentencing Stanford swimmer Brock Turner, remember, to six months for sexually assaulting a woman while she was unconscious. Turner could have received 14 years. The judge, who is a Stanford alum, is facing recall effort. He will begin hearing civil cases exclusively next month.

BERMAN: Ryan Lochte charged in Brazil. The 12-time Olympic medalist is now being called back to Rio to talk about the blowback over his over-exaggerated claims of robbery.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:23:18] BERMAN: American swimmer Ryan Lochte hoped an apology was enough. It was not. Brazilian authorities have now charged Lochte with falsely reporting a crime and at incident at a Rio gas station during the Olympics. He could be tried in absentia if he doesn't return to the country.

CNN's Shasta Darlington following developments for us live from Rio.

You know, Shasta, I'm sure you thought the Olympics would be over, but no.

SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, John.

Police have now charged Ryan Lochte with falsifying a police report, saying that their little misadventure during the Olympics really does still traction. Now, the U.S. -- his attorney in the U.S. will be advised of these

charges. He isn't legally required to come back and introduce a defense. If a judge finds him guilty, this is a crime that carries a sentence of one to six months in jail or a judge could slap him with a fine.

Let's just remember how this all started. This was when Ryan Lochte claimed that he and three other swimmers were headed back to the Olympic Village in a taxi at about 5:00 a.m. when they were pulled over by robbers posing as police and put a gun to his head and stole his wallet.

Well, when police looked into it, they say what really happened was that there was an altercation at a gas station that involved the swimmers urinating against a back wall, vandalism and armed security guards. Of course, since then, all four swimmers have apologized.

The problem is Lochte was in the United States. His colleague Jimmy Feigen ended up having to negotiate with a judge and pay a fine of a little over $10,000 just to get out of the country.

The next step here in the Lochte case is the police have presented these charges to prosecutors. They will decide whether to present to a judge.

[04:25:02] But even if the judge convicts him, it is very unlikely he'll be extradited, John. This is case that's going to play out much more with sponsors, as we know.

BERMAN: Yes. I don't think he's going.

All right. Shasta Darlington, thanks so much.

ROMANS: Breaking overnight, eight Turkish police officers killed, 45 others injured in an explosion at a police checkpoint in the town of Cizre, along the Syrian border. Turkey state-run news agency says two of the injured are in serious condition so far and no claim of responsibility.

BERMAN: This morning, Turkish tanks and special forces are in northern Syria. The elite troops stream in, backed by U.S. air power. They help Syrian rebels to take the town of Jarabulus, one of the last ISIS strongholds on the Turkish border. Turkey's president is making it clear that the operation was also designed to prevent Syrian Kurds from expanding their territory.

ROMANS: Al Shabaab claiming responsibility for the terror attack at a popular beach club in the Somali capital of Mogadishu. The AFP news agency reports at least nine are dead. Police say several gunmen from the al Qaeda-linked group stormed into the restaurant just after a car exploded outside. Security forces killed two attackers and arrested a third.

BERMAN: All right. Donald Trump tells CNN that he is not softening his position on immigration and he has what seems to be a new position overnight. This was an exclusive interview with CNN. We'll lay it all out for you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)